An English girl in Algiers....Final Part

Breakfast table is set in the kitchen, fresh thermos of coffee, hot milk and croissants, aromas of my childhood, we eat our breakfast, and get ready to go to the airport, my sister precedes us to the car, waits downstairs, presumably to “heat up” the engine, “I thought we didn’t need to do that with new cars?”, my sister clearly irritated “it’s a bloody diesel engine” feeling irritated, she threatens to leave us here and drive away, so I say ok ok, rolling my eyes, “let's all wait in the car while you heat up the engine”

We set off for the airport, stopping in Bordj el kiffan (1) to say hello to my grandmother (Mani), who was very pleased to see us and greets us with four insistent kisses, two on each cheek, she invites us to sit and drink some lemonade, she talks to Steph nonchalantly oblivious to the fact that Steph is English, who in turn nods and smiles as I answer every question for her.

As I sit there looking at her, I realise what a beautiful young lady my grandmother must have been, olive green eyes, henna died red hair and beautiful soft skin.

“did you bring me la krime” she asks, I smile and hand her a gift bag containing the anti-aging crèmes we all get for her as a new tradition in the family, “there is also a pair of lacy underwear in there for you” she smiles and says kathar khirek(2), Steph is loving the fact that my grandmother seeks eternal youth with anti-aging cremes and lacy underwear at the tender age of 78. That’s how we love our Mani.

We have to say goodbye, so as a thank you, Mani sprays Steph and I with some perfume, and thankfully it wasn’t some local production with a pungent nauseous smell. It was Coco Chanel, I laugh lovingly at this traditional encounter, this old Algerian tradition of spraying ones guests with perfume, in the old days hosts would use a dab of orange blossom water that every household would preserve in a silver container that has an oval body and a thin nozzle to drip the liquid into their palms and dab it on the guests necks or dress, some would use the liquid to aromatise their beverages mainly black coffee and tea.

With that I give Mani four kisses, Steph follows suit;

“Call me sometimes la3ziza (3)” I promise to call and with a sunken heart I leave my lonely grandmother and we continue our way to the airport.

We land at Heathrow; look at each other, and without uttering a word, smile and stretch our bodies by raising our arms up to the sky, making a sound that emobobied satisfaction and making ourselves feel at home, MY second home.
It was cold and raining, it dampens our spirits immediately to find ourselves alone again, but we fight the holiday blues, dig out the cakes my mum packed for us and enjoy them with a café au lait, pretending we were still at my parents in Algiers, the pangs of nostalgia were ever-present, the only way to snap out of holiday blues is to make the return seem superior, so as a treat to ourselves and to mark our triamphant return we go for dim-sum followed by cinema (not very extravagant)

A very telling choice, Steph and I later discussed our choices as subconsciously comparative, by choosing to have dim-sum and watch a movie (in English, with no subtitles or doubled in French with lips moving not according to the original text) is a way of acknowledging what we love about London and what we missed out on in Algiers, for me perhaps as a pathetic excuse to confirm that my decision to come back to London is the right one and to silence that voice in my head that makes me want to stay behind in Algiers every time I visit, so I shush the voice “you see... you couldn’t do this in Algiers, and you would miss London so much"

Recognising that Steph was not the only English girl in Algiers, isn’t there a bit of Englishness in all of us
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(1)  AKA Ford de l’eau – a district of Algiers that is on the sea and also near the airport
(2)   A prayer “may god multiply your wealth“used as a thank you
(3)   Dearest